


The nest of the Phoenix

by AetosForeas



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Genre: AU, AU where Myrrine takes the kids and runs, Blame Madoking, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Nikolaos comes up with a plan to save his children, This one's likely going to take forever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2020-11-27 12:16:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20948195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetosForeas/pseuds/AetosForeas
Summary: What if Nikolaos and Myrrine had decided not to take Alexios up that mountain?





	1. The Wolf bares his teeth

It was a hot, stifling night. He chose not to wear his helmet, or bring a spear or shield, but he did strap on his armor. The little form bundled up in blankets on the table squirmed occasionally. He remembered seeing Myrrine that morning, the look on her face.

_What else can we do? _He’d asked her that and she’d had no answer, but had shook her head.

_We can…_

_I promised, when you brought me our future, that I would keep it safe. _Remembering it he could hear his breathing, as ragged and labored as after a day’s heavy march or hours spent training young men in the _agoge_. He looked again to that squirming little bundle.

_This will never work!_ She’d kept from screaming it at him.

_No, but it will buy us time. Time for you to get far, far away from here. Run, and never look back._

“Nikolaos?” He looked up to see Tydale, one of the Ephors, waiting at his door. There were more holding torches in his yard. “Are you…”

“I am.” He strode to the table and lifted the bundle, cradling it softly, listening to the little sounds it made.

“Where is Myrrine?”

“My wife will not be joining us.”

“But she…”

“Gods damn you.” He did not raise his voice. “You may be able to order a woman give up her son, but by Athena and Ares, you will not force her to watch him die.” He lay his hand on the sword on his hip. Tydale blanched and stepped back. Trained for war as all Spartan men were, there were few who were the Wolf’s equal – Tydale knew he was not in that company, Ephor or not. His age alone meant he’d lost much, and even if he were in his prime, he likely couldn’t have stood against an enraged husband and father.

Nikolaos strode past them and made to his horse, keeping the bundled form close to his chest. The warmth of his arm and the gait of the horse, he hoped, would soothe and keep outbursts to a minimum. They had far to go.

It was dark and the moon high in the sky when they arrived atop the mountain. Several more of the Ephors waited, along with Archidamos and Pleistoanax. Also a Priest of Hera, waiting to perform the horrid duty. Nikolaos wondered if he would have felt better if he’d brought the helm with him.

“We waited long, Wolf.” The Priest was unknown to Nikolaos, but he spoke with familiarity bordering on contempt. “Where is Sparta’s doom?”

Nikolaos did not dare speak, and so instead he walked forward, the wriggling form swaddled up tight and held in an iron grip. He handed it over. The Priest held it aloft, turning to present it to the assembled witnesses. The moonlight streamed down over them all.

He walked as far as the altar before he felt something odd. The squirming form was striking at him, harder than he would have expected. He bent to the altar, moved to remove the cloth from it.

He got no further before Nikolaos’ sword appeared, as if a bloom flowering from his chest. His hands came up, tried to grasp the blade, but no breath escaped him. He died still not understanding what had happened. The coiled serpent on his finger, the silver ring that marked his true allegiance, was stained with his own blood for once as he fell.

“What are you doing?” Archidamos, as was often the case, was the first to speak. Nikolaos seized up the bundle, praying it would remain quiet just a little longer, felt it struggling against him.

“What I swore I would.” Nicolaos lifted the sword and strode to the edge of the mountain. “I offered Sparta my life, my duty, my honor, and the blood of my enemies. I would have offered it my son, in time. But not like this. He was an Agiad, blood of Leonidas. _Your_ blood, Pleistoanax.”

“The oracle…”

“I spit on your oracle. I spit on you, for believing it.” He never looked over the edge. _This is the only way, Myrrine. This is the only way._ He held that squalling form tight against him, watched as the Ephors tried to decide what to do. Soon, they would call for his blood. “May Sparta’s true heirs wash her clean with your blood.”

Then Nikolaos, the Wolf of Sparta, victor of battle after battle, hero for his people, stepped off of the mountain and let Taygetos do what no man ever did.

*

Many miles away, in a small boat, a woman and her daughter tacked the sail as best they could. The wind was picking up, the scent of rain heavy in the air. The moon was still high and visible, and she could see Taygetos rising up under its light. She couldn’t keep her eyes away from it.

Her daughter gasped. There was a faraway look in her eyes, one that Myrrine had seen there before.

“What is it?”

“_Pater._” The child’s voice trembled. “I… I saw him.”

“It is our burden, to see.” Myrrine dropped her head. She’d never given Nikolaos a child of his blood. She’d had her reasons, but… now, it was just another rock piled on the ones crushing her, the knowledge that although they had children, there was nothing of Nikolaos left.

_What he taught them and what he was to them remains. There is no reason to take it from them._

The bundle at her feet began to wail and she gestured to Kassandra to come and lift her brother, while she fought the sail. She listened to Kassandra whisper, watched her play _I see you_ with the small face, heard the happy cackle of the baby and felt hot tears on her face, mixing with the rain as it came down heavier.

Kassandra, for her part, could see her _pater_ dead on a rock face every time she closed her eyes. Could see the bundle in his arms. See the snout as it pushed its way through, a lone piglet, fighting its way free of the blankets. She didn’t understand, but it didn’t seem to matter, she saw it again and again anyway. The spear on her back was hot, so very hot, she feared her skin would burn. But she made herself look at his face, at his wide open eyes. There was no one to close them. There was no one to place coins in his hands.

She and the spear together burned it into her head.

Hours later, Myrrine watched the waves climbing up like mountains, or the teeth of some colossal beast come to eat their tiny boat. The sky was much the same color, and the wind blowing the rain full in their faces. She had no idea how she could have possibly kept the boat on anything _like_ a course while also having to deal with Alexios’s crying. But there Kassandra was, doing what she could not, and she fought back more tears.

_We have to leave_. It had been her to say it. _You know what they’re going to do._

_Where can we go? _Nikolaos’ voice, already sounding half dead inside. _We are Spartan. You are an Agiad, daughter of Leonidas. Yours is royal blood. Sacred blood._

_The blood in Alexios is no less sacred!_

_The oracle…_ Nikolaos sighed, looked down at the child in her arms, and for a moment the edge of a smile fought to claim his face. For all his skill, for all his years training, learning to hide and steal and kill in the _agoge_, and for all his years on the battlefield fighting for Sparta there was a haunted, graceful quality to Nikolaos that she’d seen the first time Pythagoras showed him to her, in that strange cave underneath Thera. _There is only one way forward. The Ephors, the Kings, they must see what they expect to see. _

And now… now they had seen it.

She didn’t know if they would bother to look for her. She’d decided on the boat because there was one place in the Greek world isolated enough, the ass-end of the Ionian Sea, the most deserted of the Heptanese. She made her way down to Gytheion and stole the easiest fishing vessel to use, knowing how utterly mad it all was. How far she’d have to go, with barely the knowledge from a few days of observation. All the time they’d had. But she’d trusted Nikolaos’ plan.

_Oh my grey eyed Wolf, dead on the altar of my blood. _Again she refused to cry. She would mourn him if they survived the pounding the Gods were giving their tiny stolen boat.

* 

“Mater? Mater, please wake up.” Myrrine felt the spar of wood against her cheek and pulled her face back, dried blood causing her more pain as it tried to keep her there. Her jaw felt bruised but not broken.

The sun was over the beach.

They were _on_ a beach. The sand was gentle, and the water behind them was calm enough – certainly not the churning froth and waves like rock falls she’d fought the boat through. The boat had paid the price – the hull was shattered in a dozen places, utterly unsalvageable. Not that she’d intended to salvage it.

Her himation and peplos were soaked through, as was Kassandra’s chiton. She reached out a hand and took her shoulder, squeezed it.

A loud screech felt like a knife in her head. On the ruined spar of the boat, an eagle stared down at them, cocking its head. She recognized it, cursed it and the one who sent it.

_Our sacred blood. But you don’t dirty your hands, counter of beans. Oh no. You leave that to others. To my Wolf, dead on a mountainside. _She fought to attain her feet, managed it.

“Mater?”

“Yes, lamb. How is your brother?”

“Cold.” The child was holding her brother to herself as tightly as she could, her habit of the past year. Despite their peril, it made Myrrine smile. “The boat…”

“We are done with it.”

“Where do we go?” The eagle flew off of the boat and landed on Kassandra’s shoulder, surprising them both. Alexios made a little gasping cry, and Myrrine knew the boy would soon be hungry. She looked up and down the shore. There were a few old hovels up the hillside, where the beach gave way to bushes and harder ground.

“Let’s find out where we are.”


	2. The She-Wolf of Kephallonia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years later, Myrrine is raising Kassandra and Alexios on Kephallonia. But Kassandra is growing up and away from her family, and Alexios needs more than Myrrine feels she can give him. Plus, there are dangers on the island.

“Again.”

Myrrine swung the staff, and Kassandra leapt over it, throwing a kick that she hadn’t expected and had to back away from. She managed to get the staff back up in time to block a strike, tried to lash out with her leg to take Kassandra’s, but to her surprise the kick didn’t unbalance the girl.

_Girl, I call her. Almost old enough for Gymnopaedia. In a few years young men would be making Nikolaos offers for her._

Kassandra bulled in, using her size – she was now as tall as her mother, with broad shoulders and muscles from years of finding whatever work they could. Myrrine encouraged Kassandra to keep up the lessons in music, poetry, gymnastics – to be as educated as only a Spartiate woman would be in Hellas. Myrrine tried to force Kassandra back with a shove, but the shove simply lacked the force, since Kassandra’s assault had kept Myrrine on the back foot for the entire exchange.

In the courtyard, Alexios watched his mother and sister. She’d held off on training him, but the time was soon. He was large for his age, and she could see in him his grandfather’s build, much as she saw it in Kassandra. They were years apart in age – Kassandra had been seven when they’d come there, and Alexios still a baby. Now she was coming on twelve and he was almost seven. Her children. Her duty to the future.

Distracted, she still managed to turn a strike and get in close enough to lash out with the staff into Kassandra’s abdomen, knocking the wind out of the girl. It was a harder tap than she’d intended. Kass dropped to one knee, her face twisted up in pain. When Myrrine stepped back and offered her a hand, she shook it off, swallowing back bile and using her own staff to get to her feet.

Myrrine found herself once again wishing it was Nikolaos doing this. He knew how to do it right. She had the skill with the weapons, but not the knack with her daughter.

“You were close.”

“You were going to lose.” Kassandra’s eyes betrayed little of the turmoil that her words revealed. On the wall of their little hovel, the eagle screamed, and again Myrrine found it hateful. How that bird irritated her, how what it meant hounded her sleep. Worse, the eyes in her daughter’s face were that bird’s eyes, golden and accusing.

“Yes. I was.”

“You admit you cheated?”

“When someone is going to kill you, lamb, the only rule is _don’t die_.” Myrrine wiped at her own face with a shaking hand. “You’re angry, but you’ll remember that move. And when someone is trying to take your head…”

“I have to learn to save my own neck.” There was still resentment in her voice, but if there was anything Myrrine could say about her child – and there were many – she was never a fool. She could see the sense in a thing even if she disliked it. For a moment, she felt the urge to take the girl in her arms and squeeze, to feel her breathing. _So easy for others to say words like duty, when they aren’t the ones bleeding every time that look crosses her face._

“I think that’s enough for today, na?”

“But we…”

“We’ve been at it for an hour. That’s enough. Take some pity on me, I’m old.” Since it was close enough to what Kassandra had actually been thinking, it struck home and she nodded and gathered up the weapons. Myrrine had already bought a _Kopis_ from the blacksmith in Sami, a strong enough blade, for Kassandra to train with, but the staves were useful for a while yet. She also used the hateful spear quite often, despite her growing height making it less useful as a spear and more as an unusual dagger.

_I need to get her a real spear_.

She put her arm around Kassandra’s shoulder and saw the girl tense up, then relax. She felt again the pain of it, of seeing her daughter pulling away. She knew it was going to happen, of course. – it was what children did, after all. Much less children forced to shoulder the burden the way Kassandra had.

“How’s our little lion?” She called out to Alexios.

“Good.” The boy smiled, looking up from the paper at his feet. Paper was expensive, and Myrrine’s stockpile of Korinthian _drachmae_ had long since been exhausted. But keeping her children educated was a necessity, if they were ever to return to Sparta and fulfill their roles. Alexios would be king, perhaps, and Kassandra – well, she’d known from the first moment she’d felt the girl kick that Kassandra’s destiny would transcend things like the Agiad throne.

_And yet you endangered that destiny_.

“What are you doing there, lamb?” Myrrine walked over. On the sheet of paper, Alexios was painstakingly writing, in small letters. His handwriting was neat and precise, especially for one his age. He was, like Kassandra, big for his age.

“He’s writing a letter.”

“I am not!”

“Yes you are. You always do. He’s dead, he won’t get it.”

“How do you know!?! You don’t.”

“I do. I saw it.” Kassandra bent down and pulled the bucket up out of the well, poured a handful of water into her mouth. For a moment, Myrrine was struck with just how beautiful her daughter and son were, how much it hurt every day to see them living like this. The hovel they sheltered in was a squat little thing, one room, barely enough room for all three of them to sleep. On cold nights they still often shared one bed, but when it was warm Kassandra would climb the hut and sleep on the roof.

“You were on the boat, you…”

“What do you know? You were a baby. You bit me and you cried. You don’t know. He’s dead.”

“Both of you stop.” Myrrine sighed, walked into the hut and found the armor she’d hung up on the wall, a _linothroax_ and greaves. Put them on. “What do you do if someone comes while I’m not here?”

“Hide.” Alexios still had a slight lisp. Kassandra said nothing, but by the way her fingers closed into a fist, Myrrine knew that hiding wasn’t on the girl’s mind. She met Kassandra’s stare, waited.

“What if it’s Anais?”

“Anais can stay, if she wants to. But stay vigilant, Kassandra. You know where the _Kopis_ is?” The girl nodded. “We’ll work on the bow when I get back.”

That got a smile. Kassandra liked learning new things. For all the girls mood often turned to sullen, it hadn’t been hard to get her to study her letters or music. She even liked learning how to weave. Satisfied for now that Kassandra would do as she had bid, Myrrine slid a long _xiphos_ onto her hip and took the bow with her. Perhaps she’d see something worth shooting on her way.

The walk to Sami always surprised Myrrine. Even now, five years later, she was struck at how different she and her children were from the Kephallonians. Banditry was common out on the seven islands, and both Kephallonia and Ithaka were rife with it. The closest thing Kephallonia had to an archon was a particularly galling pig of a man who lived on the coast, but she’d kept her family clear of him and his men.

Her job was to keep them safe, not to do pest control for a backward island full of peasants. She tried not to judge them, but they were natural _helotes_ if she’d ever seen any.

_Perhaps I should topple that pig and take over_. She felt the bird wheeling in the sky above her, knew that Kassandra had sent it. More and more like _him_ every day.

When she reached Sami, she checked the bounty postings – saw a job for some wolves that were coming close to town, and one for the head of a mercenary that she ignored. She wanted as little trouble with the locals as possible – she was, after all, living in a stolen house and while she doubted the owner would ever return, she didn’t need the attention.

“Myrrine.” The voice of the local potter, Duris, a younger man who always kept his eyes from roaming her body and his tone polite. She didn’t like Duris – she didn’t really like anyone on Kephallonia – but she found him less objectionable than others, like that slimy opportunist with the black beard who said his own name far too often. “I’m surprised you’re back in town so quickly.”

“They won’t bring the board out to me.” She shrugged. “So I come to it.”

“Indeed.” Myrrine knew that Duris likely found her exotic. She was older than him, with silver creeping into her hair, and the proud bearing of a Spartiate. Sparta trained her women in athletics, gymnastics, and even some work with arms, and Myrrine’s mother had been a Queen in her own right, not simply because of her husband. She was aware of her natural arrogance, how it made her stand out, and had chosen to use it rather than attempt to fight a lifetime of habit. “Still, more work is always good?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“I have a cousin on the shore, facing Ithaka. He’s having problem with raiders who come over from there and steal his sheep. They let six out last night to steal one.”

“I’m not a shepherd, Duris.”

“Oh, he got them all back. But he can’t keep losing sheep. I told him I knew someone who could possibly help him.” Duris eyed Myrrine’s arm, at the natural way it rested on the hilt of her sword. Few Kephallonians, even among the bandits, had any real training. To Myrrine they were only dangerous through sheer numbers.

“Perhaps.” She looked back to the board. “I’ll at least go and hear his story.”


	3. The daughter of wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kassandra sees more than she wants to

“Why are you still doing that?”

Alexios had grown to the point where he asked questions. A lot of questions. More questions than Kassandra really liked answering. Or even hearing. Instead of answering, she kept the broken spear ready, moving through striking motions she’d memorized.

“Don’t ignore me.”

“I’m not ignoring you.”

“I’m talking and you don’t answer.”

“Why do you ask so many questions?”

“I asked first.”

“Because I need to.” She twisted, the muscles of her arm and torso all rigid. The truth was, she didn’t know why. She just felt driven, well past even what _Mater_ expected. She had it like the sensation in her gut when she’d felt the ship about to go under a wave, pushing her ever onward.

“Mater…”

“Mater’s not here right now.” Kass finally stopped. Truth be told, she’d expected her mother back well before that point. Her arms were a bit heavier and her forehead drenched in sweat – the sun was low, almost set. That was odd. _Mater_ usually wouldn’t stay gone so long.

Again that feeling of a wave crashing down, that great gulf yawning to swallow them. She felt herself in the pit of indecision. She knew full well _mater_ would want her to stay with Alexios. But the memory of the spear in her hand, hot, the image of her _pater_ laying dead on a cliffside…

“Climb up with me.” She pointed to the top of the house.

“But I’m hungry.”

“We can’t eat without _mater_.” This was a lie. Kassandra knew full well that Myrrine would expect her to feel Alexios if she were delayed. But the boy accepted it and soon they were both clambering up the wall of the hut. Kass scanned the horizon around the hovel, but saw nothing, no movement. She watched, nerves screaming, for a half hour as the sunlight grew red around them.

She could feel it. Knew it. Something was wrong. The spear in her hand told her without images this time. She felt it like fire.

_I will not let it happen again_.

“Stay down. Don’t show yourself to anyone but me or _mater_.”

“But I…” Alexios was clever, big for his age, and tended to chafe at anything Kassandra said, as all younger brothers might. But the look on her face now quieted his objection. “Where are you going?”

“Where she is.” Kass dropped off of the house, darted inside. She had no armor – she was young yet and it was an expense – but she found the _kopis_ her mother had started training her with and belted it on. Myrrine had taken the bow, but there wasn’t anything Kass could do about that now.

Exiting the hut, she whistled, and Ikaros took wing from the tree he’d perched on. The entire time they’d lived on Kephallonia the eagle had been there, always watching them. It was a comfort and a mystery to Kass, as strange as the spear her grandfather had left behind, but far less frightening. She knew the eagle, felt sometimes as she’d always known him – there was no malice in the bird, and she could trust and rely on him.

She did now. He wheeled in the air, going wider afield as she trotted down the path from the hovel towards Sami. She’d sent the bird to follow Myrrine when she’d left, but after she’d arrived in Sami she’d felt safe enough to call him back. _Idiot. Now she’s gone. You should have kept watching her._

Before she reached Sami, though, Ikaros cried out and turned to the shoreline north of the port. Kassandra followed, making sure to practice everything both her parents had taught her. _Your breathing serves you. Master it. Only as much as you need, as little sound as insect wings. _She reached the area Ikaros was circling and saw the signs.

There was a dead man near a sheep pen. Kassandra had accompanied Myrrine on hunts – her mother wanted her to know how, and she’d taken a few deer or wolves alongside Myrrine. This was the first man she’d seen dead since the spear had shown her Nikolaos’ broken body, though. She could tell he’d taken a throat wound, could see his blood pooling around him.

Ikaros was heading towards the beach. She followed, keeping to anything that could cast a shadow – trees, a stand of grass, a small dip in the ground. There were two more dead on the path, one face down so she couldn’t see where he was wounded, the other with a severed hand. Blood loss had likely done for him. She found the hand, and a spear clasped in it. Retrieved the spear and held it as she remembered _pater_ doing.

The sun was now half eaten by the Ionian Sea and the shadows were long. She hurried after the spot Ikaros was circling.

There were several men on the beach. They were closing in on a figure in a leather breastplate, and the long hair plastered by sweat to the side of her head told Kassandra who that figure was. One of the men, a bigger man who was both thick with muscle and carrying a paunch of belly fat, had a slash across his face that clearly had ruined his left eye and he was bellowing as he swung a big club. For a hot, sick moment she thought the club would land.

Her arm whipped into motion on pure fear and she hurled the spear forward. She hadn’t time to aim, but there were four of them standing close together. She didn’t hit the one with the club, but the one standing behind him took the spear in the back, looked down to see it protruding from his breastbone and fell forward into death.

Kassandra didn’t even have time to register what she’d just done. That wave was here, now, and it would capsize the ship if she did not act. So she ran out of cover, charging with the broken spear in her left hand and the _kopis_ in her right.

*

Myrrine had accepted that they were going to kill her.

Duris’ cousin Cadon had been a bit of an idiot, but he’d been right enough about his sheep problem. She’d negotiated a fair price – drachmae, the meat and hide of the big ram that Cadon was going to be slaughtering anyway in a month or two – and then she’d sat down to wait for them to come. And they’d come, three of them, and she’d appeared out of the trees near the sheep pen and struck.

That had all been fine. Nothing worse than she’d expected. One had died immediately, the other two had run for the shore. She’d given pursuit, running after them, expecting them to be heading to a small skiff.

She hadn’t expected another four of them waiting for them. It had been a costly mistake, and one she might not have made had she not gotten so greedy lately, or so dissatisfied with her situation. It was hard to bear the constant poverty, when she’d grown up with _helotes_ for servants and estates for income. Skilled as she was, Myrrine had not been raised for this, for survival over all else, and now she was paying for it.

Still, she’d managed to rip the first one’s eye out of his skull when he tried to put hands on her. That brought a smile to her lips.

“I’ll make you suffer for days.” He was clearly suffering, and Myrrine could see the red livid flesh all around the wound. “I’ll take _both_ of your eyes.”

“At least I won’t have to look at you any more, pig.” She managed to step away from that massive metal shod bludgeon he wielded with all the precision of a mad aurochs, blocked a strike from one of his men. “Take my nose, too, because the smell is _also_ disgusting.”

One of his skinny little pack of yapping knife men came around him, trying to score a hit on her with his knives. She couldn’t turn fast enough, knew it was going to hurt… and then it didn’t. A spear point came through his chest, punching right through the sternum.

Myrrine’s heart stopped when she saw her daughter come screaming out of the shadows of the tree line, swinging the _kopis_ like a butcher chopping at hogs. No elegance and precious little technique, despite the lessons they’d started, but the man she hit didn’t expect it and hadn’t time to react and the blade bit deep into his side. It gave Myrrine time to lash out with her own sword, drive the man with the wounded eye back and kick another hard between his legs as she fought to get to Kassandra.

Kass wasn’t fighting. There was no thought to defense, no skill, no patience. She was hacking at the downed man, screaming herself hoarse. The past five years a fire in her brain as she lashed out. She didn’t even realize her mother was at her side until she heard her voice boom in her ear.

“_Run_.” Myrrine practically hauled Kass off of the man, who was by now as dead as men got, his throat cut and one of his arms almost cut entirely away from his shoulder. There were three of them left, one with the wounded eye, one with his testicles crushed by a kick, and Myrrine was not going to risk Kassandra fighting them if she could avoid it. She turned, preparing for…

She could see two of them running off down the beach, the one whose eye she’d taken and the one she hadn’t kicked. That one was trying to get to his feet, so Myrrine wrenched the spear from the first one Kass had hit and she impaled him with it in a single motion, feeling the shock of it up her arms. It had been a hell of a throw.

Kass was standing with her weapons held in loose hands, panting, her eyes wide. Shock. Myrrine knew it – the girl had never killed anyone before, and now she’d killed two. One up close. His blood was on her hands, on her face. She may have inhaled some of it.

There wasn’t time for discussion. She ripped the spear out of the man she’d impaled with it, sheathed her sword, and took Kassandra’s arm in her hand. The girl didn’t resist as her mother pulled her up towards the path, making as much haste as she could half dragging an unresponsive girl almost her own height uphill.

They went over some rocks and reached a small stream that led to the sea, where Myrrine stopped and forced Kassandra’s hands into the water. The girl was still blinking, staring off into space, but there was no sign of pursuit.

“Where is Alexios?”

“Hiding.” Kassandra’s voice was choked. “I told him to hide atop the house while I came to find you.”

“Why did you…” Myrrine stopped when she saw the dull red glow on the tip of the broken spear in Kassandra’s hand, swore under her breath at the damn thing. It had always been a weird, terrible legacy, a burden and a responsibility, but she didn’t think it had ever woken so often for either her father or his mother before him. “What did you see?”

“You.” She finally looked up and their eyes met. “Dead.”

Myrrine was numb to that, compared to the risk to _Kassandra_ that had just presented itself on that beach. But for the moment, she had to get them both home and make sure Alexios wasn’t in danger. Those men might have friends elsewhere, and it wouldn’t be hard to find where the Woman with a Sword lived on an island full of women who weaved and sewed.

“Come. We have to get back.”

They made the trip in silence, both thinking. Myrrine was frantic about the possible danger to both of her children, how Kassandra might have died coming to her rescue, or how she might have died and left Kassandra alone to raise her brother while still a child herself.

Kassandra was thinking about how she’d seen Myrrine dead, and then… stopped it. In the stories, prophecies couldn’t be stopped. Oedipus, Perseus, whenever an oracle spoke their words would always come to pass. But Kassandra had seen Myrrine die. She’d seen it, and then… she’d stopped it. She’d always wondered why her parents had named her after the Trojan Princess who angered Apollo and whose prophecies were always ignored.

Now she wondered if it had simply been because that Kassandra hadn’t learned to act. She chewed on that all the way back home, until they reached the hovel and her _mater_ climbed the walls and found Alexios hiding atop, half asleep behind the chest where they kept their meager possessions.

She slumped against the wall as Myrrine pulled a sleepy Alexios into her arms, the sun now gone from the sky and the moon huge on the horizon. She felt sick, could still smell the blood from the man she’d attacked with the sword. Looked down to see it still clutched in her hand.

“Kassandra.” She looked up into her mother’s eyes, which were wide and thoughtful and quite visible in the moonlight. “If you want to stop…”

“No.” She shook her head. “I need to be better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fact that the spear gives visions always interested me, considering that her name is Kassandra.


	4. The quiet before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexios is 12, Kassandra is 16. Myrrine has sheltered them for a decade, but things are changing in the world, even on Kephallonia. One last good day and night before everything changes.

Alexios, son of Nikolaos and Myrrine, Agiad of the line of Leonidas, was not yet a man. He was in fact just twelve. He had lived for a decade on Kephallonia, and knew no other life – the word _Agiad_ meant little to him, the word _Sparta_ less.

He knew he and his family were poor, based on the way others treated them. It didn’t concern him overmuch. He studied, his mother a surprisingly hard taskmaster – history, speech and argument, even mathematics to a degree. Afternoons were spent sparring with Kassandra, his sister. He enjoyed those times, although he most often lost.

Their _mother_ could barely keep Kassandra at bay now, so he wasn’t surprised that he never seriously threatened her. At twelve, Alexios was still years shy of his full height. Kassandra was seventeen, tall and muscular. Alexios took a great deal of pride in Kassandra.

She knocked the spear aside with a lazy strike of the half-spear that had been her constant companion for as long as Alexios could remember. Above the house, the eagle Kassandra called Ikaros flew, and Myrrine frowned up at it. Alexios realized how bad an idea noticing that was when Kass stepped inside his guard before he could bring the spear back up and dropped him on his ass with a shoulder to his chest.

“What are you doing?”

“Losing.”

“If this were real, you’d be _dying_.” She scowled at him, reached down a hand to pull him up. “What are you daydreaming about?”

“I was watching your bird.”

“Well, _don’t_. Watch the person you’re fighting.” She blew hair out of her face. Kass had fierce brown eyes, eyes that reminded him of the bird that followed her everywhere. She’d get tired of the flyaways soon and ask him for help braiding it all again soon, and he’d do it – truth was, he enjoyed the time spent doing something quiet.

“Are you two done?’ Myrrine was stirring a large pot, the smell of cooking lamb and barley coming from it. It was a cheap meal that kept.

“He keeps chasing clouds.”

“Then he’ll need to eat to keep running. You can knock him down more later.”

“When are _you_ going to spar with me again?”

“When I figure out how to keep you from knocking _me_ down.” Myrrine was already ladling the food into bowls. “You should eat as well.”

Alexios ate his quickly, eating the lentils in the broth first before the _maza_ and lamb. Kassandra ate slowly, her eyes fogged by elsewhere.

“By now her boat has left.”

“I told you that you could go see her off.”

“To watch her go marry?” Kassandra shook her head. “Anais doesn’t need that from me.” She fished out a chunk of lamb from her broth and fed it to Ikaros, cooing softly to the bird. Every time Myrrine thought she understood why it was there she would see one of these moments, one of the few times Kassandra let herself relax. “I saw some of that _mal_… some of his people to the east.”

“It’s no concern of ours.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You mean the Cyclops?” Alexios was surprised to earn the rare double glare as both Myrrine and Kassandra turned to stare at him. “What? It’s what they call him.”

“Whoever _they_ are, _you_ shouldn’t call him anything at all.” Myrrine ate slowly, her exhaustion showing. It worried Kassandra. By herself, their mother was a strong woman, but the weight of two children dragging her down, making her slower. She’d tried to shoulder as much of the burden as she could, but her own resentment tripped her up. “We don’t need him poking his nose around here.”

“Why are you scared of him? You took his eye…”

“Naa!” Kass chopped her hand sharply in front of him. “The fathead is a vindictive brute. If anyone hears you talking like that he may decide to come settle an old score. He might even decide to settle it with _you_. Keep your lips closed.”

“By himself he’s nothing. Just one man. I don’t fear a single soul on this rock.” Myrrine took a sip of the last dregs of wine from the _kraton_ they had to share. “But he has a stranglehold on the bandits and pirates in the area, and that makes him dangerous. Taking his eye and leaving him alive was a mistake, one I can’t correct now with so many guarding him day and night.”

“Markos says…”

“Nothing Markos says is worth saying, lamb.” Alexios tried to duck out of the way, but his mother still managed to ruffle his hair.

“But he says the man has an eye made of obsidian at his house, and that anyone who stole it would be rich!”

“Dead people are not rich.” Kassandra was finishing off the last dregs from her bowl. “Besides, no one here would _buy_ the damn thing. Markos is just being an idiot. Worse, he’s trying to get you to be an idiot with him.”

Alexios knew better than to try and keep the topic alive with both his mother and sister firmly against it, and let it sink, instead talking about the crazy thing Milos tried to do at a beehive on his family farm. Somehow, Alexios actually had friends his own age, which Kassandra tried very hard not to be envious of now that Anais was gone.

_She was hardly just a friend_. She leaned against the wall and stared out at the sky, at the stars starting to peer around the horizon. _Watched by you as well_. She always felt watched – by her mother, by Ikaros, by the spear she carried. By the people of Kephallonia, seeking to find a way to use her to their benefit.

A few of the braver young men had heard tales of her – how she’d cut the fingers off a boy who’d trifled with her, how she could already hunt wolves and ram better than any of them. Most resented her. A few came closer to coveting, although of all of them, only Pelamon had ever made an overture and he’d accepted her refusal with all grace. That had actually endeared him to her – of all the people left on Kephallonia close to her age, she tolerated Pelamon the best.

“Tomorrow I have to climb the mountain again.”

“For what?”

“Wolf pack in one of the caves. It’s raiding the farms near Sami. Kyprios and Ktesios both offered me 10 drachmae a head.”

“Pelamon’s cousins?”

“They have the money, they’re selling arrows and bows to the Athenians.” Kassandra shrugged. “Pelamon said they’re at war with Samos.”

“I’m surprised.” Myrrine shook her head. “There was a time Sparta would have acted.”

“I just tell what Pelamon said, I don’t know.”

“How’s his new wife?”

“They seem happy enough. She doesn’t spare much time to talk to me.” Kassandra held out her hand and looked at her fingers. “I don’t know how to weave or spin.”

“You have other gifts.”

Alexios sat in the fading light as the sun set and listened to his mother and sister speak and did not know what was coming.


	5. Lion's bane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kassandra is growing, but there are fearsome things in the world

She dreamed of Anais.

Her dreams were never coherent things – she did not dream in stories. Instead, sensations, flashes of image – the smell of her hair, the way she’d tasted when Kassandra had parted her folds, the feel of the girl’s fingers in her hair trying not to shove her head forward. Not that she could have. If Kassandra hadn’t wanted to be there, Anais couldn’t have held her there.

She woke up staring up at the night sky, and the tastes and scents and sensations faded like webbing tearing as she walked through it. Anais had been gone for months. Off to marry some farmer’s son on the mainland, somewhere on the Peloponnese, she hadn’t even bothered to find out once Anais had told her. Kassandra didn’t have much patience for goodbyes.

She sat up, remembering the way Pelamon had stammered his goodbye. She’d never been so intimate with him, but he was one of the few people on the island she could tolerate, and now he was gone too. He’d hired on to an Athenian ship that promised good pay, drachmae to send back to his wife and infant son. It made sense to Kassandra – Kephallonia was slowly dying, houses abandoned, whole families fleeing to the mainland. Taking a job on a ship meant escape and opportunity.

She stood and stretched. Her limbs ached, sore from daily use. The life of a _misthios_, as despite Myrrine’s protests their little family needed the money and food since their tiny hovel couldn’t provide either. There was no farming the soil there, so close to the sea, the soil so packed with rocks. Plus, they lived with the knowledge that at any moment they might have to leave – it wasn’t theirs, it was an abandoned hole in the world.

She strapped on the leather harness over a _chiton_ and her sword belt, strapped the Leonidas spear to her quiver, and picked up her bow. The sun wasn’t up yet, but Kassandra had excellent night vision, and she had a task that needed completing. She checked inside quickly, saw her mother and brother both sleeping. They’d be up soon, but she decided not to wake them. Better a lecture later than an argument now, and Alexios had seen the women in his family come to harsh words enough as it was.

Kassandra knew that she was old enough now to have danced at the _Gymopaedia_, and sometimes wondered what that life would have been like. She and Myrrine never spoke about life in Sparta, an unspoken agreement to never mention it lest Alexios hear about it and wonder why they’d left. _They wanted to kill you. We left so they couldn’t_. They were afraid that Alexios would take it as somehow his fault they’d ended up as they were. Still, at times she wondered, would she have married by now? She was still young for that by Spartan standards, not quite twenty years old – Spartan men were generally allowed to marry by twenty-two but couldn’t leave the barracks and live with a wife until they were thirty.

She thought again of Anais and her faraway home, her husband Kassandra had never seen. Loping through the dark before dawn, she kept her ears open, listening for the slightest sound that would tell her something was wrong.

She was well under the shadow of the statue of Zeus when the first rays of dawn crept over the horizon, crouching over the spoor of a massive animal. Kephallonia had only wolves for big predators. She’d hunted wolves. This absolutely wasn’t a normal wolf – the droppings were simply too big and there hadn’t been the usual effort to bury them she expected from a wolf. The tracks were all wrong. That left her shaking her head.

Whatever it was, it was eating the livestock of the farmers around Mount Ainos. They’d put together what little drachmae they could spare, as well as offering her three slaughtered goats with all their skin intact. It was a pittance, but someone had to do it, and they could use the meat and hide. She’d taken the job without consulting with Myrrine, because she already knew what Myrrine would say.

She kept tracking as the sun climbed up, following the occasional spoor or disturbed patch of grass and scrub, until she found herself at the Aggalaki Cave. The first thing she found outside the cave was the chewed on corpse of a wolf, its throat torn out. That was bad enough.

Worse were the three men huddled near a tree, clearly watching the cave. They certainly weren’t farmers. They were too well armed, with spears and short chopping swords like the Thrakians used. They were also too well fed. In fact, they looked entirely too well fed to be Kephallonians at all, at least not Kephallonians who worked an honest trade.

She remembered Nikolaos’ voice in her head, one of the lessons he’d taken her out into the countryside to teach her. They thought themselves alert, but her early training combined with the past decade of hunger and hunting to make Kassandra a comparative master of silence. She rounded the cave and crawled slowly through the brush until she was in range to hear them talk.

The first several minutes was pointless complaint and disturbingly graphic discussions of various sexual acts they wanted to perform. Her patience grew sketch-thin when finally, the tallest of the three of them looked up towards the cave.

“How do we even know it’s here?”

“You saw the wolf.”

“Maybe it killed the wolf and moved on.”

“It’s a perfect den for the beast.” The taller one spit out into the bushes, just barely missing Kassandra’s arm. She fought not to react. “He wants it back.”

“How by Hades’ scrote are we going to drag that thing back?”

“Once we see it come out, we head back to the compound and round up some of the others. Make some nets. Unless _you_ want to tell him you can’t do what he wants.” The implied threat there silenced all three of them for a while.

None of them saw Kassandra lift a rag from the edge of their rude camp. A faint sniff told her they’d used it to clean themselves. She used a leaf to ensure her own scent was, if not absent, far fainter than theirs.

It took almost an hour before the beast roused itself from its den. Kassandra was feeling the strain of holding herself so still, but when the animal came out she was glad she’d done so, for the creature was unlike anything she’d ever seen. She knew vaguely what lions were, from tales of the myth of Heracles told to all Spartan children. This creature was so large she felt her insides turn to water for a moment, a giant sleek thing with sides rippling with muscle sniffing at the air. She was grateful the air was blowing from the direction of the cave.

“Zeus’s balls.” One of the men, the one who spoke like a Thrakian chewing on his words, was far too loud. “How did they ever catch that thing?”

The beast’s head came up and Kassandra knew it had heard them. She knew it before it moved, feeling as if removed from her body, the spear point on her back glowing again with that hateful clarity. She tried to wrestle her eyes closed, force her head down, but she couldn’t. She knew what was coming, realized the lion was still in its cave, that she was seeing what _would_ happen, not what was happening.

She managed to shake her head free, force herself lower, pull away and begin moving to the side. She had a task to complete, and it wasn’t one she could do without guile. But she _had_ guile.

*

Acrion had been born in Sami. He’d spent his entire life on Kephallonia, had never been so far as even Ithaka, although he’d of course seen it. He was not a young man anymore, had spent his youth and was now entering the prime of his life a drunkard, a wasteful spender, a whoremonger and a bandit. He had ambitions of piracy.

Like most of his sort, he served the island’s biggest thief and most brutal gang chief, not out of loyalty, but out of fear and for the rewards his service brought. He was in those hills not because he wanted to be there, but because he knew the area around the Aggalaki Cave and because the Cyclops _told_ him to be there.

He and his two ruffians were dozing as the sun came up, waiting. He’d sent Teleos back to the Cyclops’ home to fetch as many men and nets as possible. Once they arrived, they could…

He smelled it before he heard it. A rank smell. The smell of blood still not dry on fur.

Acrion looked up to see the impossible. His camp was a hundred meters from the cave, and was up the rocky side of a ledge. There was no reason for the animal to have come out, and even if it had, there was no reason it should have come there way even if the wind was blowing down towards the cave, which it almost never was.

Acrion screamed as he reached for his spear. His hand never found it.

Kassandra watched, impassive. What she knew was that she’d taken pains to drag that cast-off piece of cloth with the waste of one of them on it all the way from the cave to the cliffside where they watched it. Now she watched as Acrion died – not that she knew his name – and his two fellows scrambled to pick up blades and defend themselves as best they could. The animal was massive – easily twice the weight of a full grown man, if not three times, and she suspected it was – and the shaggy fur along its head and neck was like nothing she’d seen before. Still, it was a beast for all that, and one of them managed to slice a rather nasty wound in its flank before it killed him.

She waited until all three of them were dead to loose the arrow.

It was a good shot, if she said so herself. Not good enough to kill it, but good enough to take its left eye. It let out a noise unlike anything Kassandra had ever heard in her life but she didn’t let that stop her from firing again, and then again.

It whirled and charged at her perch atop a nearby column of rock and she leapt to the side, just barely evading those claws that had so easily torn the life from Acrion. The broken spear was in her hand now, glowing, her body moving to its promptings. It knew where the lion’s claws and teeth would be before _it_ did.

Even so when it whirled on those massive paws and lashed out she only barely managed to roll away, taking a blow to her arm that left bloody furrows in her skin. She rolled on the ground, letting it overshoot her, the loss of its eye and the blood seeping from its wounds keeping it off balance.

The spear felt like it was doing the striking, using Kassandra’s arm, and she was shocked to feel the force of it ride up her arm. There was no way for her to keep hold of the Spear, the impact tore it from her fingers despite her iron grip. Then the lion was past her, the weight of it shocking and she readied herself for another charge.

But there was none. The great cat lay dead on the rocks from the force of its own leap, the Leonidas spear right in its heart.

There was the impulse to laugh. She’d never even _seen_ a lion before, and now, she’d _killed_ one. But she knew better than to crow too loudly. For one thing, she had no idea when the Cyclops’ men would come and find their fellows dead, and for another, she could imagine all the ways Myrrine would lecture her. She’d been sloppy, she’d counted too much on the Spear and not enough on her own wits, she’d needed three of the Cyclops’ men to soften it up for her first. Heracles she was not.

Still, when she pulled the Spear free of its body, there was a smile on her face. She dragged the body out of sight behind some rocks and set to work. The meat she would have to leave behind, but she’d learned quite a lot about skinning.

*

Myrrine was stone faced when Kassandra returned to the hovel a few hours later. She’d gone to the farm to the south of Ainos and collected her fee, and had a wagon full of meat and hides in her track as she crested the small hill.

“I did not raise you to be a fool.”

“And I am happy to see you too, Mater.”

“What happened to your arm?”

“I got scratched.” She pulled the wagon up to the door and waved to Alexios, who was up on top of the hovel, his nose in a book. “Hail, my brother.”

“Where did you get three goats?” Alexios dropped to look over the edge. “And what’s that big bundle of fur?”

“Ask _Mater.”_

Myrrine was staring at it, her frown deepening. She lifted it out of the cart and stared fixedly at it. She’d seen a lion skin on a few occasions – not many, as they were vanishingly rare in Greece, but there were still a few on the Peloponnese and there was one in the hall of the Kings in Sparta proper. The look she leveled on her daughter was both wary and, around the edges of that, Kassandra could see something else.

“Come. Let me see to that arm. You can tell me what you’ve done and how much I would have disapproved.”

“Quite a lot,_ mater.” _Kass laughed. “You would have disapproved quite a lot.”


	6. Fools and Money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kassandra and Alexios on a day out in Sami. Surely nothing could go wrong.

“Don’t come here again.” Myrrine’s voice was a knife thrust into a back, hard and sharp and sudden. Markos flinched from it, his instinct for protecting his own hide as strong as ever. “Especially not to see my daughter.”

“It’s easy money…”

“It’s a _fool_’s money, and I’ve done enough work on this island to know when you’re peddling shoddy shoes.” Myrrine turned to Alexios, who was standing in the yard pretending not to eavesdrop while making spear casts, and doing quite well despite only half paying attention. The mock soldiers he and his sister had put up for practice bore the scars of his casts. “Alexios. Did I not ask you to head to Sami for me?”

Alexios wanted to say no, because she _hadn’t_ asked, she’d told him to do it. Also, because he wanted to stay and keep listening. But he knew better than to try it. At sixteen, he’d filled out, his limbs all lean and muscular, his waist tapering from his broad chest. He’d nearly reached his full height, and was slightly taller than his sister despite her greater age.

But he still was a boy living with his mother and sister, each of who were formidable forces, and he knew better than to defy Myrrine.

“Yes, _Mater.”_ He walked away, picking up a leather belt and sliding a dagger into it. He made a show of putting away the spears, both because it was something that they’d both drilled into his head and because he meant he could observe his mother and Markos arguing some more. He couldn’t quite hear them, but his eyesight was sharp and he could read what she was saying well enough from just her tone and body language.

He decided to bring a spear with him. Myrrine might have objected, but she might not have – there were wolves on the road to Sami, and sometimes those wolves walked on two legs. Pirates and bandits had grown bolder as the years had passed. Alexios preferred not to fight if he didn’t have to, but he’d been taught how by both his mother and his sister. Despite what many of his peers had to say about that, he knew full well that meant he knew his business much better than most.

He trotted down the road, making sure to avoid the old temple to Zeus with the wolves living between the columns, and skirting the edge of the large vineyard in the shadow of Mount Ainos. It was unseasonably warm and his thick black hair and recent stubble were both catching the sweat. He shook his head to scatter it and kept moving, watching young men and women around his own age as they gathered the grapes for old Melanion.

Alexios knew he and his family were different than most Kephallonians, but the knowledge was second hand. Unlike his mother or sister, he didn’t remember their lives before they’d arrived on the island. For him, there was nothing to compare it to and his father wasn’t even a memory, just a subject no one wanted to talk about. So he didn’t bother to keep himself aloof, and smiled at a few particularly pretty girls as well as a _very_ pretty young man with hair like hammered gold. One of them, the young man, even smiled back despite being occupied with his work.

Alexios had considered asking Melanion for work, but he had two overprotective women in his life who seemed keen to keep him forever reading old books and studying things he didn’t see the point of. Why did he need to know the laws of Lycurgus? Who was Lycurgus to him, after all, some old Spartan king and lawmaker had nothing to do with a poor Kephallonian.

He cut through an alleyway on his way to Duris shop and flattened against the wall as he saw two silhouettes come out of a hide covered doorway. It had been instinct, but as he watched, he was glad of it. One of the figures was a young man, a few years his senior, one he’d seen on a few fishing boats looking for work. He was occupied speaking in low tones and then kissing someone.

The someone was Alexios’ sister.

She was a few fingers taller than the man, her face smiling for once. Alexios had seen Kassandra smile, of course, but… in many ways, Kass was his second mother, his other parent. Myrrine was the disciplinarian, the taskmaster, but it was Kass who showed him the sword and the spear and the bow, who drilled with him. Equal parts rival and mentor, she encouraged him to excel, sometimes with praise, and almost as often with a drubbing that left him on his back with his sword flying out of his hands.

He’d never seen _this_ smile.

She reached down and kissed the man, then swatted him on his ass and smirked as he yelped and moved away towards the docks. Alexios held his breath, watching as she stood there, hands on her hips, her _peplos_ a Dorian thing, marking her as Spartan. Her smile faded out, replaced by something sadder.

“How long have you been watching me, little brother? Did _mater_ send you after me?”

“I… no. I didn’t know you were here.” He came out from the gap between houses, chagrined. “I heard someone moving, so…”

“Yes.” She looked at him and it hit him how _similar_ they were, the cast of their features. “Why are you here, then?”

“_Mater_ sent me to get some things from Duris.”

“Pffh.” She shook her head. “Well, two’s as good as one.”

“Who was that?”

“Teukros.” She turned her head to look at him as they walked. “If you have a question, think carefully before you ask it.”

“Are you…”

“No more than I did Anais. And that’s all you need to know. What I do is _my_ business, little brother.” Alexios thought that Myrrine would have something to say about that, but the fact was, he understood that Kass chafed at their mother’s tendency towards imperiousness. Kass had been making her own money for years now, working as a Misthios – she was more often sought after that Myrrine was now, and even _mater_ knew that Kass was her better in combat. All over the island she was known as the Eagle Bearer or the Bane of Lions, stories of her prowess earning her a reputation that helped her get work, but kept her isolated. People didn’t want their daughters emulating… or spending time with… the woman who took up arms.

If Kass cared what they said about her, she didn’t let it show.

“I’m not _mater_. I don’t care what you do. I just worry, that’s all.”

“I could break Teukros with one hand.”

“Doesn’t mean he couldn’t hurt you.”

“Is this about me, or about that Persian girl?” Kass smiled at him, mock-sweet and acrid, but he didn’t take the bait. “What was her name?”

“She wasn’t Persian. She was from Cyprus. Her name was Iolanthe.” He shook his head, remembering the girl. Slim, a quick smile, her graceful arches slicing through the water under a full moon. Myrrine hadn’t approved, and neither had Iolanthe’s father, who scoffed at their family as rootless vagabands. _He doesn’t even own the shack he squats in._ It still stung, more than six months gone. “Have I done something to offend you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “But it’s… I have to _do_ something.” Her hand reached out and took his shoulder, stopping them both. “Do you understand what I mean?”

“No?”

“I can’t… I have no _life_ here, Xios. We just _exist_. And it’s not good enough for me, not anymore.” She was staring past him, out at the water in Sami’s harbor. “There’s a whole world out there. Don’t you… I want more. More than a shack I share with my mother and brother, more than stealing a few kisses from someone who’ll be gone tomorrow.”

He found himself staring. Kass had a musical voice, when she choice to use it. He wondered so often at it, at her and his mother, like queens living in exile. There was something impossibly regal and imposing about these women, something that they couldn’t hide no matter how much they wanted to.

“If you leave, promise me you’ll write.”

“I...” She looked surprised. Maybe she’d expected he’d argue? As much as he loved both of them, Alexios knew they couldn’t see him for who he was now. He would forever be that baby on a boat washed up on the rocky shores of Kephallonia fifteen years previously. “Yes. Of course I’d write.”

“Are you going with…”

“He’s just someone I met, Xios.” She straightened her shoulders. “Let’s go see Duris, already.”

They walked the rest of the way to the shop in comfortable silence. Alexios didn’t always feel like he needed to talk, and neither did Kass. The sun was hanging on its descent now, to the west over the water of the harbor. He wondered what it was like for Odysseus to sail all across the Aegean trying to get back to Ithaca. Then again, Odysseus was a king, not a vagrant living in a decaying shack, putting every spare Drachmae towards survival.

Kass stiffened as they turned the corner to Duris’ shop. Alexios reacted to it before he saw why, craning his neck to see five men standing around Duris. The look of fear on the man’s face was practically a shout despite no sound coming from his mouth.

“You can imagine how hurt he was.” The largest of the men growled. He was thick, that was the best word Alexios had to describe him. His shoulders, his gut, his limbs. The old copper and leather breastplate on him hung from fraying leather straps, clearly a hold-over from better days. “I mean, you know how he likes to be consulted.”

“It wasn’t… just a small amount. Not worth his time.”

“To borrow from _Markos_, though.” The other four were closing in, and the others – the village smith, old Lesra who did weaving and whose family had all died from a plague years before, even the fishmonger had all found other things to pay attention to. No one wanted it to be _them_.

Alexios hung his spear from his shoulders and looked to his sister. Tension radiated from every inch of her – muscles locked tight, ready to spring. The shortened spear on her back shivered against the quiver and Alexios could see trails, like a freshly heated shard of metal shimmering in the air. The _kopis_ at her belt, and her hand nearly closing on the hilt.

“Duris.” She spoke instead, her voice clear and loud. The five men all turned to look at her and Alexios, and he found them like swine, like the men Kirke changed. He wondered if he’d been reading too much lately. “You look busy.”

“_Misthios_.” He nodded like his head was afraid it would fall off. “Ah, just a moment, I…”

“You’re not very smart, are you?” The biggest of the men turned to face them.

“Have you heard people say it so much you think it means _chaire_, friend?” Kass leaned back on her back foot, as casual as anyone planning murder. “Why not spare us all and go back to your boss and tell him where to stick it? We’re all too busy for this shit.”

There was a long moment and Alexios could feel the weight pressing down on them, could feel the big man lock eyes with Kass. She didn’t look away, meeting his stare with one of her own, her lip curled up in a smirk.

“Take care of her.” The big man gestured and knives were drawn.

Alexios had never actually been in a fight. He’d gone hunting, but there’s a difference between going out for food and going out to kill another man, and he felt ice clawing up his hands. If not for one thing, he might not have moved at all.

But even as Kass drew the _kopis_ and turned to face the closest one, Alexios saw a knife go through the air. It wasn’t a great throw. Kass wasn’t in any significant danger from it. But _knowing_ that didn’t mean he felt it, and seeing it twirl in the air, knowing it had been thrown at his sister was all he needed. Alexios moved before he could think, the spear on his shoulders now in his hand. He threw it, a perfect cast, just like he’d been doing all morning in the yard.

He watched it bury itself in a man’s guts and realized what he’d done.

Kass was dealing with the other three. She blocked a _xiphos_ and kicked a man in the face, crushing his nose and dropping him to the ground. Her spear and sword formed a cross and sent another’s knife, and hand, twirling through the air.

Alexios had seen Kass, had sparred with her, had watched her against Myrrine, but this was the first time he’d seen her kill anyone. He gawked for a moment.

“_Malaka_, Xios. Get your spear back or draw your sword!” She hissed as she sidestepped, taking a dagger slash across her cheek for her trouble and burying their grandfather’s shimmering spearhead in the man’s throat. There were two dead now and one missing a hand, he’d likely bleed to death as well. The big man had drawn a big stick, like a shepherd’s staff but iron tipped, and was trying to brain Kass with it.

Alexios reached out and ripped his spear out of the man’s gut and turned to face the last uninjured thug, warding off a dagger strike with the shaft and using the end-spike to carve across his face. He made a noise like a piglet and it was the work of moments to take out his arm with a clean thrust, rip the blade free, and drive it hard into his chest between his ribs. It felt like someone else was doing it, like he was watching something from a great distance.

He looked up in time to see Kass dispatch the big man, driving blades into his kidneys on both sides and tearing across to his front. He fell down gasping and she slashed the _kopis_ across his throat. With that, the sound stopped, the marketplace becoming unusually still. The other shops were deserted, everyone having chosen to be elsewhere.

“You _killed_ them!” Duris bleated like a sheep being sheared too close.

Kass spared a glare for the man and then rounded on Alexios.

“What were you thinking? You could have…”

“He threw a knife at you!”

“Badly!” She grabbed one of the bodies, hoisted it up over her shoulder and walked it over to the docks and threw it in the harbor. “Grab that one. We need to get them to where the sharks can get at them.”

“What? Why?”

“The less evidence the better.” She walked back, picked up the largest of the men. Alexios was impressed, he was a big man, and she carried him like he was barely there. He pulled up the one he killed first, swallowing back a bit of bile as he did. His hands wanted to shake, but he didn’t want her to see it. Once the bodies were all in the water, he looked up to see several pairs of eyes peering down on them from nearby windows.

_Someone will talk. For money, or just to avoid the Cyclops’ wrath._

He turned his attention back to Kassandra, who was standing… looming, really… over Duris.

“So?”

“So what? You came in here and killed them! I was…”

“You were going to catch a beating, if you were lucky. Considering how quick they were to draw blades, probably worse. Why?”

“How should _I_ know why, you madwoman?”

“Duris…” Kass could convey a lot of emotion with a clipped tone and an arched eyebrow.

“I took a loan, all right?”

“What, from the Cyclops? Are you an idiot!?”

“No, that’s the… so, Markos, you know Markos?” At her slight nod, he kept going. “He’s been going around undercutting the Cyclops’ rates for loans. Says he wants to buy a vineyard. He’s not exactly doing it for _free_, but it’s a lot less expensive than…” Duris looked around. “Well, you know who.”

“You won’t even say the word, but you were willing to go up against him?”

“It’s 300 Drachmae! I didn’t even think he’d find out about it.”

“That idiot.” Kass shook her head. “He left a message he wanted to talk to be about a job. I didn’t expect _this_.”

“I wonder if that’s why he came by the house.”

Kassandra turned to face Alexios. Her face looked as still and pallid as marble, her usual olive tan gone as the blood drained away.

“He what? When?”

“Today? A couple of hours ago now. He and _Mater_ were arguing about something. She sent me here to get those pots Duris promised her. Probably to get me to go away so she could talk to him alone.”

She didn’t even waste the time to say anything else to Duris, instead grabbing his arm and heading away at a fast walk. Alexios kept up, but he could feel the way her entire body strained.

“Tell me what you overheard.”

“Almost nothing, except _Mater_ warned Markos to stay away from you or she’d kill him.”

“I can do my own killing.” She let go of his arm. “Keep up.”


	7. The wrath of the Agiad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Cyclops sends his regards

For Myrrine, the worst part about Markos wasn’t that he was an idiot.

Not everyone could be brilliant. She’d known good men and women who were lackwits. And even though she found being conceited and self-important less forgivable than stupidity, she’d known a few of those who were worthwhile in other ways. So it wasn’t that, either.

It was his extreme venality. Markos was a liar, in addition to being a self-praising buffoon, but it was the way he tried to make literally every interaction about wealth, specifically wealth for himself, while pretending to an intellect he didn’t possess and a cunning he had no experience with.

“…so in a few weeks, I’ve managed to gain several customers, and…”

“They’re not _customers_.” Myrrine snarled at him, but Markos was too focused on himself to realize it. “They’re _debtors_. All you’ve managed to do is loan out money you got by deluding people even more credulous than yourself, and now you want to hire my daughter to strong arm them into paying you back double what you loaned them.”

“That’s still better than…”

“Do not say that name here, fool.” Myrrine and Kassandra had already run afoul of the Cyclops once, the day that Myrrine cost him his eye. She’d worked hard to keep them off of his map since. She let her eyes sweep around the front yard of the shack she’d been squatting in the past fourteen years. Years in which Kassandra and Alexios, the heirs to the Agiad bloodline, were living like _helotes_ on a ball of rock not even the Athenians wanted. No, worse than _helotes_, they would have at least had the protection of Sparta’s armies if someone like the Cyclops rose to power among them. A thug like that, the Krypteia would already have cut his throat for him.

Sparta had its flaws. Myrrine, who’d fled it to keep her son alive, knew that better than anyone. But at least it wasn’t _this_.

“I tell you, it’s easy money for everyone. I get my interest, Kassandra gets a hefty purse for her trouble, it’s win-win!” The imbecile who wanted to use Leonidas of Sparta’s granddaughter as cheap muscle in his latest get rich quick scheme smiled at her, beaming. Her hand itched, the spear resting against the house, well out of reach.

She opened her mouth to speak and heard the sound of men, breathing. Without turning her head, she moved her eyes to the side and saw them. Seven of them, big men, haphazardly armored in whatever leather or cloth-backed cast offs they could find or steal. One had an old Illyrian helmet on, it was battered and dented and gouged. She felt her lack of a spear keenly, but they were close enough and at least two had bows.

“Markos.” One of the men spoke with a slight slur. “And the She-Wolf.” The words dripped like oil from an amphora and coated the ground between them. “I thought maybe we’d find your brats here, too. Clean you all out once and for all.”

Myrrine’s eyes narrowed. There was only one way she could possibly get to the spear without them filling her full of arrows.

“My friends.” Markos began, opening his arms and taking a half step forward. “I’m sure we can work this out, can’t we?”

Myrrine took a half step behind him, crouching because she was taller than he was, and shoved him forward so hard that he nearly rolled into the group of them. In that moment, all eyes were on Markos. She half ran, half leapt to the door of the shack, grabbed her spear as she rolled inside, and heard arrows slam into the wall as she cleared the doorway. She didn’t stop, instead going out the back door and heading right, keeping the building between her and the archers.

“Idiots! Zanatis, shoot her!”

“Do _you_ see her?”

“Then _go find her.” _The group broke into two, one archer and two of his fellows heading for the front door, while the other three moved to go around it. Only the speaker, the biggest of them with a face like the backside of an ancient cow, held onto Markos with a hand better suited for bludgeoning. “You. He told me to bring you to him alive if I can, so if you don’t make me kill you…”

The first group moved through the front door and into the hovel, saw no one inside it, and moved through the back door. The archer nocked his bow and looked around for a target.

Myrrine drove the spear in her hands through the top of his head from her position crouched on the rooftop. The sound of crunching bone, and then she ripped it free and rolled out of reach of their swords and daggers. She knew not to stay still – they knew where she was, and the walls weren’t that difficult to climb even for those not raised the child of an Agiad king. She kept low, listening for the sound of them moving.

She pulled back barely in time to keep a spear from pinning her to the roof by her eye, and another went over her head.

*

Alexios was breathing ragged as he ran, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t close the gap with Kassandra. He was still short of his full growth, and she was not – moreover, while he trained, she was seasoned. He was impressed with himself for even being able to stay within a few lengths of her, to be honest.

She jumped a small, bent tree and he slid under it, not sure of himself enough to risk it. It let her get a little further ahead. Above them, the eagle that had adopted her flew ahead. Alexios didn’t understand how she could seem to control it, to get it to act without so much as a word or a gesture.

He cursed himself for having left his mother alone with Markos. He knew she was more than capable of defending herself from one oily little man, it had never even occurred to him that the man might bring danger in his wake. Markos? He was too _petty_ to inspire vengeance, or so Alexios had thought.

He clutched his spear in a tight hand as he kept trying to follow his sister.

They came to the front of the hovel and Alexios took in what there was to see. He’d always had the gift for it. There was a man cluching Markos by the throat, a dead man on the ground near the house, another with a bow firing at the top of the house. Four of them with swords or daggers, trying to avoid Myrrine lashing out with a spear.

He saw his mother take an arrow and fall.

Kassandra was busy with images flooding in from the broken half-spear in her grip. She drove it through the spine of the man holding Markos while still on the move, almost _feeling_ the arrow loose from the bow before it hit Myrrine but unable to get there fast enough. The archer turned, seeing her coming, and drew back another arrow.

Alexios’ spear took him in the throat and Kassandra ran right into him, bearing him to the ground. She grabbed hold of the spear and twisted, ripping it out of the wound with enough force to send his blood spraying. She rolled up and threw Alexios’ spear, taking a man in the leg behind the knee.

Alexios stopped long enough to pull a _makhairos_ out of the dead man Kassandra had impaled on her way by, ignoring Markos coughing and sputtering at his feet, and then he ran in. Sixteen he might be, not quite a man yet – his mother’s voice came to him, drilling him on an errant spear cast. _If only you’d been to the Agoge_.

But he hadn’t. All he had was what she and Kass had taught him.

He could see that Kass was frantic, burning with it. She ran at two of them, no pretense of control, nothing but rage now. She had no shield, never used one. So Alexios ran in and blocked a thrust with the stolen sword, giving her time to bury the half-spear in a man’s eye.

It turned into slaughtered. Alexios didn’t strike a single blow. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was keep daggers and swords from Kass, and let _her_ do the killing. She had no shield, so he became her shield. He turned strikes that would have found her kidney or liver, caught one blow on his forearm and earned a long narrow slash up to his shoulder for the trouble. It was like the time he’d started a deer and gotten a kick to the side, he went down to one knee and lost the sword. But the second strike he’d expected never came.

Because Kassandra drove her _kopis_ into the man’s heart and through his back and slashed his throat open for good measure. And suddenly, everything was quiet, and there she was bent at the knees, holding onto him.

“How bad?”

“Arm hurts.” He flexed his fingers. “But not broken. Just bleeding.”

“Stay here. I have to…” They both looked up in surprise as Myrrine came from the back of the house, her _peplos_ ragged and bloodstained. She held a stained spear in her right hand, while her left arm was held close to her chest. There was an arrow sticking out between her fingers, lodged in her hip. She was limping.

“How badly are you hurt?” She dropped to her knees next to him.

“I was about to ask you.”

“They missed my vitals, but not by much.” She looked to Kassandra. “Break this off. We can’t risk pulling it out.” Her daughter did so, for once not even arguing with her. Alexios could see the pain on his mother’s face despite her effort to conceal it. She looked over and saw Markos standing near the edge of the hovel’s yard. “They came her for _you_. You should go find a nice rock to crawl under and hope they don’t know which one.”

He made a noise like a startled sparrow and ran, which made Myrrine laugh.

“You enjoyed that.” Kass had broken the shaft off of the arrow, and was now wrapping up the wound with strips of cloth torn from the dead men around them.

“Take your pleasure where you can find it.” Myrrine shook her head. “I’m getting old. I let them get this close.”

“What…” Alexios looked down at his arm, at the nasty gash down his shoulder. It had kept him from taking a blow to the chest, but it still hurt like mad. Once Kass had finished on Myrrine she turned to him, her eyes strange. He’d never seen her look so stricken. “Will they come back?”

“They’re dead, so I doubt it.” Myrrine laughed more. “But yes, he’ll send more. Especially once someone tells him about Markos. It’s only a matter of time.”

“He won’t be sending more.” Kass’ voice was still.

“How’s that, lamb?” Myrrine hadn’t called Kassandra _lamb_ in years, but blood loss and perhaps elation at not being dead had put her in a mood. “What’s to stop him?”

“He’ll be short a head.”


	8. Uncharted Waters

She waited for nightfall.

The moon was lamentably high in the sky, painting everything with her hue. Selene, come to watch, perhaps. Kassandra put it out of her mind. She couldn’t order the moon out of the sky.

Alexios, despite his wounded arm, had helped her get Myrrine to the old cave the lioness had laired in. The animal was long dead, but nothing else had moved in, and it was close enough to the Cyclops’ lair for Kassandra’s purpose. She took Alexios aside and pressed her bow and _kopis_ on him.

“What…”

“You’ll have to watch over her until I get back.”

“Why don’t we just leave?”

“To go where? With what money? With what little we have saved up, we could _maybe_ charter a boat, but what would we do once we got there? No. If _mater_ gets worse, get her to Sami. The priestess at the shine there owes me a favor. She knows a little of healing.”

He hadn’t liked it, but he hadn’t objected, either. Myrrine was strong, but the past fifteen years had eroded her, Kassandra wasn’t sure if she could come back from an arrow in the side. And as much as she knew Alexios was strong and getting stronger, he was still hurt himself. Bringing him with her would have been handicapping herself.

“How long do I wait here?”

“Until the sun’s up.” She strapped on the broken spear, one of Myrrine’s _xiphos_, and one of the bows the bandits had been carrying. “If I’m not back by then, I’m not able to come back.”

That hit him, she could see it on his face. It made her ache inside. _I’m sorry, Xios. I’m sorry this is the way the world works. I tried to keep it from you._

She wrapped the lion fur around her mother’s shoulders on her way out. Myrrine smiled, but Kass could see the tremble on her face.

“You could wait and we could go together once I’m mended.”

“Soonest begun, soonest done. The longer we wait, the more chances he gets. We waited too long as it is.”

“I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to it.”

“And yet it has.” She kissed Myrrine on the forehead. “I’ll be back soon.”

“You had best be.” Her mother’s voice cracked. “I will be angry if you are late.”

“Can’t have that.” Kass smiled, placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder, and then made herself leave so that she wouldn’t see her face. The compound of the tick squatting on Kephallonia’s back loomed behind a field of olive trees and farms. Under the moon, it was as clear as sunrise, beautiful in its way. But Kephallonia’s problem had never been a lack of beauty, just everything else.

It took her half an hour of skulking to make her way up to the first guard. They were everywhere, easily a dozen or more, patrolling and standing guard. She’d had to go around and up from the beach to make her way to that one spot, within sight of a doorway.

She still didn’t move. Barely took in breath. From her vantage underneath an old tree, she watched as the guards came and went, until finally there was just this one, his back turned to the doorway. There was no way to approach him without being seen, without an alarm. She cursed, knowing that more would soon come. That the night was running away from her.

“I’m hungry.” Came a small, reedy voice from just out of Kassandra’s view.

“I don’t care. Until we get a ransom, you’re not worth feeding.”

“Who’s going to pay it? Everyone’s poor.” A sound of a dry throat scraping itself, and an exaggerated spit. “_Malaka_.”

It was like a dream to Kassandra. The man turned his head, just enough, a look of anger on his face.

She burst out of cover, grabbed hold of his tunic and pulled him back in with her. He opened his mouth to yell and the shortened spear of Leonidas punched up and into his throat, ending whatever he was going to say. She lay in the brush for only a moment, tall grass scratching at her face, before pulling the blade out and leaving him there, dead but out of easy sight.

_More guards will come any moment. You can’t be here._

She crossed the distance to the door, looked inside. Sure enough, a cage, and in the cage a small girl, maybe ten or eleven. It was hard to judge. Xios had been this size at that age, but he was growing into a big man, so perhaps he was ahead of her. Her own childhood felt impossibly distant and impossible to gauge. The lock wasn’t very complex, but the child’s arms and legs were covered in bruises and broken skin and her whole skeleton showed more than Kassandra liked to see.

“You’re not a guard.”

“Quick of you.” Kass broke the lock open with the shortened spear and opened it, slashing at bindings at ankles and wrists. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” She rubbed at her wrist. “He’s not here.”

_Fuck_.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Some rich plum landed a ship north of Sami. Cyclops said they should go visit. Brought a bunch of his with him. Didn’t look friendly.” The girl tried to stand, but her legs gave out and Kassandra caught her. “Just need a moment.”

“Sure you do.” The decision wasn’t a decision. Kassandra scooped the child up. “Put your arms around my neck. Don’t argue. I may have to let you go and you’ll need to hold on. What’s your name?”

“Phoibe.”

“Why are you here, Phoibe?”

“I do odd jobs for Markos. They just grabbed me on my way back from Sami. Said they had questions.” Kassandra couldn’t see her face, but her voice was clear enough with her head buried in Kassandra’s chest. “Didn’t like my answers.”

Kassandra fought that one back down and looked to make sure it was clear before moving, heading into the brush and grass, keeping as low as possible. Selene watched them leave, but no one else saw them.

“Where are we going?”

“A cave. It’s not far from here.”

“I think it would be better if it were.” Kass laughed, a soft chuckle. The girl was feather-light in her arms. “Athens, perhaps.”

“Why would we go to Athens?”

“I’m from there. I was born there. We came here, I don’t know why. Everyone died. There was no one to ask.”

She could feel Alexios’ eye on her long before she reached the cave. He stood aside and let her in, his expression a question without him having to ask it. She placed the child on one of the blankets they’d spread for sleeping. Myrrine’s eyebrows knit almost together seeing it.

“What happened?”

“He’s not there. Business at a house north of Sami.” Kass brushed some of the girl’s hair out of her face. “This is Phoibe.”

“I know. She works for that waste of skin, Markos.”

“Wasn’t aware you knew who worked for him.”

“I was taking mercenary work on this island before you could even use a bow. It always pays to know who might employ you.”

“Take many jobs from children?” Kass shook her head. “She needs to rest for a while, and I still have a few hours to catch them before sunrise.”

“You’re so…” Myrrine shook her head, pulling herself up into a sitting position. “Alexios, get some of our water. I think there’s some dried fruit…”

“Yes.” He nodded and moved to fetch the meager supplies they’d brought with them.

“I don’t…” Phoibe moved to stand and Myrrine stopped her with a hand on her chest.

“Be still. I have an arrow in my flank and I can hold you down, you’re not in shape to go anywhere.” Kassandra knew her mother as well as she could… Myrrine held herself at a reserve, she always had… but realized it had been years since she’d seen that look on her face. The sight of it was a blade made of memories she couldn’t spare the time for, her mother and father in better times. She blinked, a hot rush at the look on Nikolaos’ face the last time she’d seen him, laying dead on a mountainside. “If you’re going to go, Kassandra, go now. You only have a few hours left.”

She nodded, turned to place her hand on Alexios’ shoulder.

“Take care of her.”

“I always do.” He smiled. “Sure you don’t want me to…”

“Very sure.” _I wish you’d never had to see any of this_.

It took less than half an hour to make her way to Sami, but it took an hour to work her way around the house Phoibe had mentioned. Not only did the Cyclops bring men, but whoever was inside the house had brought their own, and it seemed like they’d decided _not_ to slaughter each other. She sent Ikaros up and concentrated on the eagle, on the way she could feel him – possibly from the spear, possibly just because of whatever it was that made them special enough that a prophet demanded Alexios die.

There were well over twenty men in the courtyard of the small house, facing each other. The Cyclops had clearly brought more, but the newcomers were better armed, with higher quality swords and spears, even a few shields. She didn’t see the Cyclops himself, meaning he was potentially inside the house.

More interestingly, there was a ship anchored just off of the coast, with several men tied on the deck, and two men with swords watching over them. That drew her interest. A ship… a ship could mean escape. Freedom, from Kephallonia, the Cyclops, from a life Kassandra felt trapped by.

_We could all leave. Even mater must be sick of this shithole by now._

Seeing the first, faint traces of red lacing the sky above, she altered her plan. There was no way to get to the Cyclops, too many men. But there were only two on the ship.

*

Kreios had joined up with the Cyclops out of boredom and a cruel disposition. He’d been the kind of child who enjoyed torturing insects and he’d grown into the kind of man who enjoyed holding power over others. For example, the trierarchos of the boat, who grimaced every time Kreios kicked or spit on one of the crew tied near the mast.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t have to do _anything_ you say, old man.” Kreios sneered at him. “You already have one dead eye, want to go for two?”

“Hey.” Andros shook his head. “The boss wants him alive if possible, ease up.”

“Like it’s that hard to find someone to order a ship crew around. I could do it.”

Andros opened his mouth to say something to that. Probably reminding him not to push his luck with the Cyclops. Kreios didn’t know the man’s real name, didn’t know if _anyone_ did, despite how much he hated being called after the wound on his face. Losing his eye had forever changed the man, made him cruel in a way even Kreios feared. But Andros never got the words out.

Instead the fletching of an arrow appeared between his eyes. Kreios turned, fear giving him speed. But as fast as it was, it wasn’t fast enough as another arrow took him in the chest.

He saw a woman drop down onto the deck of the ship, walk over. There was a sword in her hand. It caught the few red rays of light from the horizon, the rising sun, and then he saw nothing at all.

Kassandra hacked the bonds off of the men tied to the mast, working quickly.

“Can you sail this boat?” This to the man with the clouded eye on the deck of the ship.

“By the Gods, I’ll sail her all right. Where do you want to go?”

“South of here first.” She busied herself throwing the dead men overboard while the bound men went and opened up the ship, setting the rest of the crew free. “I have some people to pick up.”

“As you saved my life, I would be a pustule in the eyes of the gods not to aid you. But who are you? Artemis herself, to shoot down these curs? Or Amphitre, sliding out of the water like a goddess?”

“That’s quite the imagination you have. I’m Kassandra. And you?”

“Barnabus. Formerly of the Athenian navy… but that was quite a while ago now. My ship is the _Adrestia_.” He barked out a command and the crew fell in, pulling up the moorings. She saw movement on the coast. “Ah, damn it. I was hoping they wouldn’t notice.”

“Just get us under way. They’re too far off to do anything about it.” She watched as several of them ran out to the water’s edge, but the ship pulled away without incident. Inside her, a hot feeling, equal parts rage and exhilaration. Her revenge was still there, on that island. But her freedom from it felt like a laugh forcing itself from her, and she let it go. Let herself almost cackle with delight at the notion of never seeing Kephallonia again.

“Did I miss a joke?”

“You just left one.” She wiped at her eyes, streaming tears. “Let’s get to the southern coast of this rock before the sun comes up.”


	9. Never heard of him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four years after escaping Kephallonia, Kassandra goes to Phokis to meet up with Daphnae and take a job from a local merchant named Elpenor. Probably nothing special.

She knew it was a dream because it was Taygetos, a mountain she’d never actually been to. In the dream, instead of a stolen boat and a storm threatening to swallow them, she could see darkness, torches, a crowd assembled to watch as an old man took her baby brother and walked to the edge. She struggled in her mother’s arms, watching.

Her father turned his face to her and she saw the agony on his features, even as he did not move a muscle to save Alexios.

_That’s not what happened. He went up the mountain alone. He died alone. _A day hadn’t passed in the nearly twenty years since that day that she hadn’t seen Nikolaos of Sparta dead on that cliff. His eyes wide, as they were wide now.

“I loved you.” He spoke, and her attention snapped to his tortured face. “And your brother. I loved both of you. But you were never mine.”

She stared, her thoughts a storm. The old man was nearly to the edge of the cliff, and she twisted, fear and rage making her savage. Free, she ran forward, her arms outstretched.

She didn’t bolt upright this time. She was proud of that. Myrrine wouldn’t have approved. Not that she was there to see it, because if there was anything Kassandra absolutely didn’t feel like dealing with, it was her mother’s opinion of the woman lying naked at her side.

The old temple in Phokis loomed around them. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust, and when they did she could see Daphnae half in shadow, half in light from the open door as the sun climbed up. In sleep, Daphnae’s face was still, a small smile that made Kassandra feel strange. The woman was beautiful, A broad, smooth forehead, lips the color of pomegranate juice, eyes that flashed with emotion like sparks from a banked fire.

_And I only see her when I bring her another dead animal_.

She leaned back and exhaled. Her own nakedness felt wrong. Her armor, her weapons were close, well within reach, and she knew she’d feel better wearing them. Her mother’s words came to her – _as long as we’re moving forward, we’re invincible_ – but she had no idea where to move to. She took a long, slow breath, released it. Calm did not come.

“So eager to leave?” Daphnae spoke, her hair loose and her usual diadem missing from her head. Kassandra assumed it was some symbol of her rank, but she didn’t know, because Daphnae’s faith made little sense to her.

“Well, I still have to find a bear for you.”

“And you’re in a hurry to do that?” The other woman stretched, and Kass found herself staring at the sleek limbs, the muscle on her abdomen. She’d explored the night before but it wasn’t a sight she felt she’d grow jaded with. “I thought you might make a little more time for me.”

“I also have a job waiting.”

“Oh?”

“Local merchant. Wants to hire me for something.” Kassandra shrugged. “Not that I don’t enjoy slaughtering for you…”

“It’s not slaughter, Kass. It’s sacrifice. Are you telling me you don’t feel a sense of it? When you took the lion you told me you felt awe.”

“He was a magnificent animal. But that’s all he was to me.” Kass had pulled up her legs, put her arms around her knees. “I’m sorry, Daphnae. If your goddess exists, or if she doesn’t, it’s all the same to me. I did my own hunting from the time I was old enough to hold a bow. Artemis, if she noticed, watched without comment.”

“No one who meets you doubts that you’re acquainted with the goddess. Even your own _triearchos_ can see it.”

“Barnabus sees sea monsters and believes Apollo talks through that woman in Delphi.” Kassandra was playing up her scorn a little, because the more she did, the more Daphnae smirked and the expression was beautiful to her. “He saw me shoot someone and ran from there with the idea clutched to his chest.”

“It’s an easy idea to have, mighty huntress.” The priestess stood, still naked, and held her hand down. “Come. If you’re to leave me, we can at least eat first.”

Kassandra let herself be lifted to her feet. For all that Daphnae was significantly shorter than her, the woman was strong. She remembered the feeling of her legs clamping down, on the feeling of her thrusting up to meet Kassandra’s lips and tongue as they teased. Much different than Anais had been. Kassandra had always worried she’d break Anais, but Daphnae could take more. Before she moved away, Kassandra pulled her closer.

“I’m not really in the mood for food just yet.”

“No?” Their lips were close enough that they could feel each other’s breath. “Perhaps there’s something else you want?”

“I think you may be right.” There was always that sharp burr of anticipation before the moment, it was something Kassandra savored in life. That pang, the feeling of _almost_ as it became too much to ignore. She held on until she felt rather than heard the sound of Daphnae groaning slightly, watching her lips part just enough.

Everyone kissed differently. Anais kissed like a flutter of fragile wings, soft and hesitant, afraid to break a spell. Teukros had kissed greedily, overly hasty but with a quiver of need behind it that Kassandra had enjoyed. Daphnae kissed like the animals she hunter, fierce and unrestrained, holding nothing back. Kassandra’s mouth burned when they parted, her lips feeling bruised.

They dropped back down onto the furs they’d used the night before. Daphnae pushed her over onto her back, trailing kisses down her throat, across her breastbone, and into the hollow of her own abdomen. She parted Kassandra’s legs and slid a trail of fire down between them, tracing the folds of her with her tongue and her teeth. Kassandra arched, fighting to not thrash about.

When it was over, the sun was fully up and Kassandra found herself staring out at the world, thoughts blessedly stilled for a time. Just the feeling of the woman in her arms and an urge to sleep. It was warm and if it wasn’t safe it was at least comfortable.

But there was the work, and the _Adrestia_ waiting for her on the docks at Pilgrim’s Landing. So she stood and dressed herself, feeling that moment when her breastplate and greaves went on over her chiton. Despite everything she wanted to believe, she only felt whole with the armor on, and the spear in her hand.

_But you were never mine. _The words from the dream stayed firmly with her. Next to the fire, Daphnae was pulling back her hair, placing her diadem on.

“When you do find the bear…”

“If.”

“There is no if, Kassandra. You may not believe me, but believe the evidence of what you’ve already done. When you find the bear, bring the pelt to Chios.”

“Chios? Why Chios?”

“Because it is where I’ll be.”

“And you’ll be there because…”

“Come and see.” Daphnae’s smile had ghosts behind it and it made Kassandra furrow her forehead, but she nodded.

*

The ride back to Pilgrim’s Landing was uneventful. The horse she’d extorted from Markos for a ride off of Kephallonia was a beautiful Makedonian beast, massive with a broad head and a neck like a small tree. His name was Phobos, and he was easy to love, for all that he was stubborn and willful and too much like his rider.

She let him have his way most of the way there. She never liked stopping in Phokis, for a variety of reasons. It was because of the Oracle of Delphi that her father was dead, that she’d lived in a hovel on Kephallonia all those years, that Alexios had been marked for death. It was hard to remember what her life had been like before, what she might have been if not for that.

Pilgrim’s Landing was crowded, with people coming every day to head to Delphi. The war between Athens and Sparta, or between the Delian and Peloponnesian Leagues if you wanted to pretend, was getting more serious every day. It meant work for her was easy enough to get, but she liked to travel and not stay in any place too long. After years of feeling trapped, the freedom of life on a ship suited her.

As she rode up to the harbor she could see Barnabas up on the deck, talking animatedly to one of the crew. Further down the deck, she could see Alexios practicing with a spear and shield, while Myrrine and Phoibe watched. Phoibe had grown like a weed the past four years, something which Kassandra felt keenly whenever she looked at the girl. If Phoibe had been Spartan, she’d have danced at the Gymnopaedia by now.

Kassandra wondered if Alexios understood the way the girl looked at him. He wasn’t _blind_ and she knew he’d had his crushes and broken his heart a few times, maybe broken a few himself. But it felt like they all had adopted Phoibe, in their own way, with Myrrine cossetting the girl and tolerating her impish nature far better than she would have with her own daughter, Alexios treating her like a little sister, and Kassandra…

Well, she didn’t know what it would feel like to have her own children. It was probably too late for that, her being well past twenty and closing in on thirty, with no life outside of her small family and the crew of the _Adrestia_. Even her relationship with Daphnae felt tied to her life on the deck of that ship. Phoibe was hers by choice and action, and she held on to her at once afraid to squeeze too tightly and break her and afraid to drop her.

“Ho, Kassandra!” Alexios yelled from the deck. “You’re back soon.”

“Just wanted to get Phobos settled in.”

“Are we leaving soon?”

“Have to go check with Barnabas’ contact.” She swung off of Phobos and let Kadon, one of the crew they’d picked up in Malis, take the reins. The boy was good with horses and unfailingly polite to her, which went a long way.

“But do you think we’ll be putting to sail soon?”

“Getting antsy, little brother?”

“This from you, who showed up one night with a boat and told us we were leaving.” She and Alexios were roughly the same height now. Maybe he was a little taller. He’d shed much of being a boy… his face covered in stubble, his exposed chest and arms covered in hair. In a way Kassandra missed the boy he’d been, but there was no disputing that Alexios had become her unofficial second, she relied on him to keep the ship in order when she was gone, and he was the only one around who could spar with her anymore.

“How is _mater_?”

“Her hip’s acting up.” Kassandra looked over at Myrrine, who had taken Phoibe in hand once Alexios had stopped training and was showing her how to spin. As hard as it was to spin on a ship, Phoibe was picking it up. _Do I have to find her a husband? Is that what I’m supposed to do with her?_ “Plus, Phokis, and you know how she gets when you’re gone overnight.”

“Yes, Zeus and Hera forbid I pretend I’m an adult.” She threw her arm over her brother’s shoulder. “Come on, I should get my scolding in now.”

“I’m not going to scold you.”

“Listening, were you?”

“You were ten feet away. You’re not that quiet, Kassandra.”

“I can be.”

“Yes, yes, _misthios_.” There was a hard edge to the teasing, but Kassandra was relieved – usually when Myrrine’s arrow-wound acted up her temper came up with it and they’d had a few rows over the years. She’d never really accepted not having recovered fully, although she was fortunate to not be dead. “So, are we spending another night in Phokis?”

“Not if I can help it. Tell Barnabus to be ready to leave when I get back.”

“But you just _got_ back.” Phoibe looked up from the wool. She was already better with a spindle than Kassandra had ever been.

“Yes, and then I’ll go out and come back again. I wanted to see you all before I dealt with some jumped up local rich man with more drachmae then sense.”

“If you haven’t met him…”

“He’s looking to hire me. Spending money on a _misthios _means you’ve already run out of sensible options.” She reached out and brushed a few hairs out of Phoibe’s face. “And in my experience, rich men are usually full of themselves.”

“You’ve successfully paid for your own ship for four years.” Myrrine said blandly.

“And I’m nothing if not full of myself.”

“Well, at least you know.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Alexios asked, likely trying to head off any possible conflict. She considered it. Alexios was better with potential clients than she was, and he was far from a slouch in a fight. She didn’t really want him involved in what she did – he was far more important than she was, at least in her eyes – but it might not be a bad idea.

“If you want to come.”

“It’ll get me off the boat for a few.” He brushed a kiss onto Myrrine, rubbed Phoibe’s head (and completely missed or deliberately ignored the look on her face) and headed to find a _linothorax_ and a pair of daggers to go along with his spear. Kassandra decided not to meet Phoibe’s eyes, not wanting the girl to feel embarrassed. _I had my crushes, why shouldn’t she?_

“I’ll be back soon and then we can get away from here.” She turned to Myrrine. “Is it bad?”

“Is what bad?”

“Don’t play. Are you hurting?”

“Not intolerably so, and if I get worse, Barnabas will mother hen me until I go lie down.” She shook her head. “That man… it’s like he’s too earnest to know when to step away.”

“Someone has to keep at you to rest.”

“When was the last time _you_ slowed down?”

“Why would I slow down? As long as we keep moving we’re untouchable.” There was a laugh in her voice but it didn’t quite reach her eyes and she knew Myrrine could see it. “Keep _mater_ honest, Phoibe. I’ll be back soon.”

The girl nodded and Kassandra walked to where Alexios was waiting for her.

“So, who is this big shot we’re going to meet?”

“Don’t know him. Put up a notice, Barnabas saw it and told me about it.”

“Does he have a name?”

“Yeah.” They walked towards the center of Pilgrim’s Landing, past the big house the local Archon called home. “Elpenor.”


	10. The palace of ruins

Alexios looked through a gap in the tall grass and looked up at the crumbling palace… more a fortress now, with pairs of two armed men walking around it in circuits… in disbelief.

“How are we expected to get up there?”

“Carefully.” Kassandra replied. “Still not too late for you to go back to the ship.”

“And leave you to do this alone?”

“Indeed.” She reached up and pushed her braid back over her shoulder. It was something she did when she was nervous. He wasn’t surprised. From the moment the merchant in Phokis had offered them a job in Ithaka, she’d been on edge.

He looked over his shoulder and saw Sami, flickering lights from cooking fires and torches as night settled over them. He hadn’t been back since the night they’d fled, and seeing it now felt as if a ghost was with them.

“Instead of having that argument again, why don’t you tell me your plan?”

“If they have this shroud, it’ll be a trophy for whatever jumped up bandit runs this crew.”

“You think they’re independent?”

“This close to Sami? Ordinarily I’d say no, but there are a _lot_ of them, maybe more than would be worth his time.” She shook her head. “Or he’s not willing to bear the cost of doing what it would take to drive them out.”

“Don’t like that.”

“What?” She looked over at him.

“If we just kill them all, we’re doing his job for him.”

She said nothing. He knew she was remembering the last time she’d seen him kill a man, how he’d reacted afterwards. He’d had a lot of time to replay that moment, though. Thinking about what they’d done to his mother, what they would have done to him, it no longer sat heavily on him. But Kassandra had a hard time looking at him and not seeing a baby wrapped in blankets.

“See that hill, there?” She gestured towards the large rock outcropping that made up the back wall of the palace. “We can go around, get a better view.”

“Haven’t just asked your bird?”

“A lot of men with bows in there, and it’s dark.”

“Lead on.” He nodded towards the hill in question, and the two of them made their way quietly through the brush and clambered up the rock face. They finally settled on a vantage point just above the center of the old palace.

“Imagine what it must have been like when it was intact?”

“With difficulty.” Kassandra pointed. “There. In the center. The big fire with four men around it.”

“Five.” Alexios corrected her. “There’s one on the roof.”

“Good eyes. I didn’t notice him.”

“You think that’s where the Shawl will be?”

“If it exists, it’ll be on that one. The one with the wine face.” Alexios looked again and saw that one of them had a large red birthmark on his face.

“You could see him, but not the one on the roof?”

“Seems to be, doesn’t it?”

“You can stop trying to make everything a lesson any day now.”

“That sounds unlike me.” She drew her bow. He did likewise. “But here’s your chance to show me what you’ve learned.”

Admetos belched, wine on his breath.

“And that’s how I stole it!”

“Boar shit.” Glaukos sneered at him over the fire. “Quiet, you? Never was a day that happened. You pulled a blade on him. Probably had Akis and Kaunos with you.” He swept his eyes over both men who were sitting at the fire, both carefully studying their wine. “Or are you two going to tell me all about how Admetos actually snuck into a rich man’s home?”

“Leave me out of this.” Kaunos shook his head. “I’m just waiting for us to sell the fucking thing.”

“And that baggage over there?” Akis leered at the wooden cage with the woman glaring at them. “I still say we could pop her out, have our fun.”

“The one-eye won’t like that.” Admetos shook his head.

“Since when do we care what that fat pig has to say?”

“Since he’s the one we’re trying to sell things to.” Glaukos stood up. “We can’t very well go around talking to every half-hatched bandit on the Ionian. If word gets back to that asshole in Kirrha…”

“He doesn’t even know we have it!” Admetos brayed like a goat.

“There is no way I’m believing that you snuck into his house.”

Watching this from above, Picus shook his head. Admetos hadn’t snuck into the house – he’d waited until the merchant prick was away from Kirrha on business and then he’d simply broken down the door and stole the man’s supposed treasure, which ended up being a few drachmae and an old cloth. It was the same cloth the shit eating rat of a man had paid them to steal, and Admetos figured that made it worth even more money to sell it again.

Snorting, he turned away from the fire and looked out over where the others lay sleeping. There was the briefest of flashes down in the dark, something glinting in the light of the newly risen moon. He narrowed his eyes, preparing to shout.

The arrow took him in the eye and punched through to the back of his head. He dropped to the floor of the ruined upper level of old Odysseus’ palace, dead before he’d finished falling.

From her perch above on the tallest remaining building of the old palace, Kassandra lowered her bow. Even might Odysseus might have had trouble drawing it, and her arms stood out with cords of muscle as she nocked and drew back another arrow. She could see Alexios making his way through the night and had to admit his skill, if not to him then at least to herself. Between the two of them they’d removed close to a dozen men without being spotted or raising any alarm.

She sighted along the arrow and watched him creep around to the left. There were only four left, now that the one on the roof was gone. The time for the bow was over. She relaxed, letting the bow string go back into place, sliding the arrow back into her quiver. She made her way down the wall and along the rubble to the edge where the man she’d shot lay dead. The arrow’s shaft had broken when it went through his head, so she left it there.

She waited until she could see Alexios creep through the brush and to the back of the cage. She frowned, but it wasn’t something she wanted him to lose, this desire to help people. Instead, she waited, watching him work at getting it open. Nocked back another arrow, feeling her arms tense up.

“Who are you, what are you doing here?”

“Woman, do you want us to get caught? Keep your voice down,” Alexios hissed as he finished ripping the lock out of the cage door. Luckily, she didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled the door open, gestured to her with the hand that didn’t have a dagger in it. She nodded, but warily. He backed away from the cage and headed for the brush.

“Eh?” One of the drunks by the fire had finally shrugged off enough of Dionysos to see that the cage was open and the woman was stepping out. “What in…”

Alexios flipped his dagger up and tossed it, the way he’d practiced a hundred times. He’d never actually _done_ this, and his throw was slightly off, taking the bald brute high in the shoulder instead of in the chest like he’d hoped. A loud, incoherent shout of pain was the result.

That was followed by an arrow. Kass put it right through his throat, sending him falling to the dirt. Alexios drew the _xiphos_ he carried along with the daggers, knowing that the angles were wrong for her to shoot down into the rest of them, sleeping under the ruined roof of the palace.

He turned his head to tell the woman to run only to see her pulling a bow out of a weapon rack and a quiver off of the ground with easy familiarity. _Fine, even odds then_. The one with the big red birthmark on his face came charging out with two daggers – long Thrakian blades, almost swords really – and Alexios found himself working to stay alive.

“I’ll cut your ears off!” He had the unpleasant reek of days unwashed and wine unwatered in his nose, it nearly made his eyes tear up. The bandit didn’t have a lot of technique, but he was much faster and stronger than Alexios had expected. He heard footsteps coming up the hill and realized he must have missed an encampment, but didn’t have time to worry about it. _Kass will handle it_.

He parried a strike and licked out with the sword and dagger, expecting it to put his assailiant on the back foot. Instead, both slid home into his chest, as if he didn’t have the slightest notion of defense. He nearly lost them in his surprise and just barely got them out before those big Thrakian cutters would have found his face, rolling away and coming to his feet away from the drunkard who didn’t seem to know his lungs had holes in them now.

The sound of a bowstring and an arrow flew from behind him and caught the bandit leader in the abdomen, went deep. He _still_ didn’t drop. Alexios felt himself get cold inside, as he pushed everything that wasn’t helping him survive down. The other two bandits, the ones Kass hadn’t shot in the back of the neck had grabbed spears and were coming out as well.

Alexios didn’t have time to take his eyes off of the wheezing mess of blood that charged at him again, so he just barely saw Kass drop off of the roof and onto the back of one of them, her half-spear punching through the man’s head and out his eyes. The impact of her drop smashed him hard into the ground as she rolled away, _kopis_ in her right hand, and blocked a spear thrust by crossing both blades.

Alexios rolled away again, dodging another strike that would have caught him in the face and lashing out on his way, dealing a wound to the man’s thigh that would eventually bleed him to death. But since he already had three such wounds, Alexios kept his distance.

Then the spear took him in the throat and he dropped. Alexios turned to see Kassandra standing over the bodies of the second spearman, dispassionately sliding her half spear back into the quiver she wore. She was looking at the woman with the bow, the one he’d freed from the cage, her eyes like flint.

“If you’re going to shoot us, get to it.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Kassandra. He’s Alexios. You should thank him. I would have left you in there.” Keeping her eyes alert, Kass walked over to the dead man who’d refused to die and searched him. “Here it is.”

“As my sister said, I’m Alexios.” He slid his _xiphos_ into the sword belt and found his other dagger. “What do we call you, and can we call you it somewhere else?”

“Odessa. And yes.” She strapped the quiver on more securely over the exomis she was wearing. “My boat’s this way.”

Barnabas hated waiting.

The ship was floating off the coast of Ithaka, keeping the island between them and Kephallonia. He had absolutely no desire to go back to that island – memories of being tied to the mast and listening to the local bandit lord’s men gossip about how he was going to die were quite fresh, even years later. But so, too, were his memories of how he’d gotten out of that situation.

Myrrine and the girl Phoibe, who was going through her lanky stage and reminded him of his own brothers when they’d been boys, were up in the aft of the ship. Myrrine was a deft hand with a spindle and was showing the girl how, and Barnabas was as always amazed at how quickly the girl was learning.

“Yes, like that.” Myrrine nodded. She looked up and saw Barnabas, her expression changing. “Is something wrong, Captain?”

“Barnabas, please.”

“Yes.” He knew she wouldn’t, of course, but he kept trying.

“I’m worried for them. We’re very close to Kephallonia.”

“It’s not them you should waste worry on.” Myrrine’s eyes flashed and yet again Barnabas was reminded of the tales her son told of her working as a mercenary to keep them fed. “If that pig puts himself in my lamb’s path, he’ll lose the other eye. And his life alongside it.”

“Of course.” Barnabas didn’t doubt that Kassandra could do exactly that. He’d seen her fight enough times by now. “Still, I mistrust this place.”

“It took much from me.” Myrrine sat stiff on the bench and Barnabas wondered how much pain she was in. She carried herself with rigid poise, but he knew the old wound had never truly healed properly, keeping her from strapping on armor or carrying weapons alongside her children. He’d never seen it, but from what he remembered the day they’d all left the island, it probably should have killed her. “There, little one. You have it.”

“Thank you, Myrrine.” The way the child stared up at the older woman made Barnabas’ heart crack in his chest. So desperate for affection, for approval, even years after they’d essentially adopted her. “How much longer before they come back?”

“It shouldn’t be long.” Myrrine was staring now over the water at Ithaka. “I can’t imagine what’s keeping them.”

Kassandra was very good at ignoring things, but it was hard this time, with the thing she was trying to ignore standing there, sputtering in outrage.

“They were waiting for someone to come _buy_ me.” Odessa almost snarled it. She was nothing like Daphnae, and yet, there it was in her eyes, the flash of fire when she said the words. Kass didn’t want to respond to it. “The only reason they were still here was that he never arrived.”

“And you’re sure they said ‘Cyclops’?” Alexios gently prodded her.

“Or ‘One-eye.’ Or _Polyphemus_, one of them kept calling him that. He did it to mock me, because I’m Odysseus’ namesake. _Your own cyclops, Far Speaker. _It only got better for him when he saw that I understood.” She met Kassandra’s eyes then. “If not for you I wouldn’t have had the chance to shoot him.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t actually say thank you.”

“You should learn to, if you’re going to keep blundering into cages.”

“I didn’t _blunder_.”

“So you _deliberately_ put yourself in a cage for slavers to sell?”

“Is she _always_ like this?”

“No, she must like you, she normally doesn’t waste a lot of words.” Alexios pushed off of the tree he’d been leaning against, watching them. “Do you think we should…”

“Probably not.” Kassandra’s mouth was dry. _If you’d done it before…_ “We’re not being paid to deal with him. We have what we came for.”

Alexios met her eyes, waited. Kassandra played at being all about money, but he knew her. The woman who’d taken Phoibe in without a backwards glance cared more than she wanted to admit.

“Well, whatever you two decide, nobody tries to _buy me_.” Odessa’s boat was a fishing skiff, not designed for deep water. It was amazing she’d made it to Ithaka. “I’m heading to Kephallonia and I’m going to…”

“Oh, enough of that.” Kassandra shook her head. “You’re going to go home. Back to… where did you say you’re from?”

“I didn’t.”

“Megaris, then.”

“How can you possibly…”

“Your accent, your stubbornness, that skiff you call a boat, and that blade on your hip is an Athenian _xiphos_. If you hugged the coast for most of the trip, you could make it from Megaris to here. We’ve been to Megaris a few times.” Kassandra stepped a little closer. “You’re good with the bow. Want a job?”

“A job? I came here for an adventure, to see Odysseus’ palace!”

“And you’ve seen it. And it’s a dump full of bandits. Forget the past, forget Odysseus, and come see the rest of the Greek world from the _Adrestia. _Or go back home to whatever you were escaping from, it’s up to you.” Alexios had never actually watched his sister talk to someone for this long before, and it was fascinating to see the strangely brusque charm offensive at work. Odessa seemed as confused as he felt.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“That’s what long sea journeys are for. It’s up to you. But really… do you have a better offer?” Kassandra looked down at her hand, as if deciding it for herself, then held it out to Odessa. “Plus, if you say yes, we can all go kill that sack of offal who wanted to buy you.”

Alexios wasn’t sure what he was expecting.

It wasn’t to see Odessa reach out and take Kassandra’s wrist in her hand. They were standing very close to one another, eyes locked on each other.

“Well, I was going to go kill him anyway.”

“It’ll be better with company.”

“I think I like you. I'm not sure I shoud.”

“Of course you should. Ask my brother.” He nodded as Odessa regarded him. “Welcome to the crew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I was in the hospital for a bit and I'm going back in again soon, but I managed to get this done. I've always felt like Odessa didn't really get a lot of time compared to other characters, so here she is.

**Author's Note:**

> Blame Madoking for this one -- I read her excellent If It Happened Differently and I wanted to bite off a piece of that AU action. And it hit me -- what if Nikolaos and Myrrine had decided they weren't going to take their kid up that mountain? How could they have gotten around it?


End file.
